So I just started learning how to rip/encode my dvd's recently. I found fairuse and it's been pretty easy with good results. However, i have a few questions.

1. It seems as if this program is completly unsupported (outside of this forum) anymore, with no new versions or even a manual coming anytime soon. Is there another software which gives as good (or better) results and is also as easy to use/learn?

2. I am currently archiving some of my adult swim cartoons to my hdd and have noticed some strange results with encoding times. I did both seasons of the boondocks which are 20-22 minute episodes each, i was able to do 2 discs overnight. So I tried another dvd in which each episode is only 11 minutes, and it took 10+ hours to encode. The boondocks were 5 episodes each disc and 2 discs were under 8 hours, the other (tom goes to the mayor if your wondering) was 10, 11 minute episodes that took 10+ hours. Is it normal for different discs to take such an extreme difference in the encode time?

3. There is an option during encoding "use idle <somthing>". I'm wondering what that does, it almost seems as if it is saying to use only idle cpu. If i am not using my pc for anything during encoding, should i leave this checked or not?

Thanks
-Rich